Best Real-Estate Agents for First-Time Buyers in Minnesota (2026)

1. Graham Smith

9.1/10

$150K–$2.8M · 100 reviews

Graham Smith has run The Graham Smith Team at Keller Williams Integrity Lakes since 2002, building $125M+ in career volume and 100 Zillow reviews at 5.0 (172 across platforms). He's the deeply-reviewed choice for Minneapolis city neighborhoods — from first-time buyers to investment — backed by a full team and two decades in the market.

2. Jim Dropps

9.1/10

$240K–$1.2M · 33 reviews

Jim Dropps has lived in the Sheridan neighborhood of Northeast Minneapolis since the mid-2000s and founded Northeast Real Estate Group, an independent two-agent brokerage, in 2012. His recorded sales cluster almost entirely in Northeast and North Minneapolis neighborhoods — Audubon Park, Waite Park, Windom Park, Holland, Sheridan, and Near North — and his firm markets itself specifically around neighborhood duplexes and starter homes. Public reviews are limited in number but uniformly five-star, and a construction-and-building background in the family gives him a practical angle on the area's older housing stock.

3. Brian Scates

9.0/10

$300K–$1.2M · 155 reviews

Brian Scates runs his own brokerage, Scates Real Estate, out of the Plymouth / northwest-metro area — a GRI-designated broker with 20-plus years, 800-plus career transactions, and 155 Redfin reviews at 4.9. He's the high-volume, independent-brokerage choice across the west and northwest metro, comfortable from first-time buyers to the upper-mid market.

4. Beth Nordaune

9.0/10

$200K–$900K · 1134 reviews

Beth Nordaune has led Rochester's Enclave Team, formerly the Nordaune Team, for roughly two decades, and recently moved the operation's brokerage affiliation from RE/MAX Results to Real Brokerage. Aggregator data citing Zillow attributes about 1,134 reviews at a 5.0 average to her and the team combined, the largest reviewed footprint found for any Rochester-based real estate operation in this research. The team now runs close to two dozen people out of offices in Rochester and Eagan, so a client who calls Beth Nordaune may end up working mainly with a teammate rather than her personally. That tradeoff between scale and personal attention is the central thing to weigh here.

5. Wendy Carson

8.9/10

$150K–$2.5M · 155 reviews

Wendy Carson has worked out of RE/MAX Results' Apple Valley office since 1998, one of the longer continuous tenures among agents based in the south metro. Her practice spans first-time buyers through executive-level and relocation clients across a wide swath of the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. Public review counts are unusually large for an individual agent -- well over a hundred logged ratings across Zillow and an independent aggregator, plus a separate Yelp page -- and are consistently close to perfect. She operates as a solo associate rather than under a named team brand.

6. Denel Ihde-Sparks

8.9/10

$230K–$2.1M · 100 reviews

Rochester's highest-review-volume team leader, nationally recognized, with 25+ years and a genuine relocation specialty.

7. Tom Scott

8.8/10

$280K–$750K · 6 reviews

Tom Scott has sold real estate in Shakopee since 2001 and added a broker's license in 2010, working as an associate out of RE/MAX Advantage Plus's Shakopee office rather than leading a named team. Brokerage materials credit him with several hundred Shakopee sales and a career total in the high hundreds of closed transactions. Public review volume is modest — a handful of write-ups on Birdeye and Facebook rather than hundreds on Zillow — but every rating found is five stars.

8. Alex Mayer

8.8/10

$116K–$693K · 44 reviews

eXp Realty's #1 Rochester producer in 2025, working solo with a sharply defined focus on first-time buyers and Mayo Clinic relocations.

9. Randa Haug

8.8/10

$15K–$2.3M · 177 reviews

A high-volume solo agent with an unusually deep review base for someone not running a branded team — a strong pick for buyers, especially first-timers and single-family/lake-home shoppers.

10. Scott Lynch

8.7/10

$180K–$750K · 100 reviews

Scott Lynch has worked full-time in Central Minnesota real estate since 2001 and is currently with Agency North Real Estate in Sartell, just across the river from St. Cloud. Public sources credit him with more than 500 career transactions and roughly $100 million in sales volume, along with a GRI designation. Independent review platforms show consistently high marks, though the exact count varies by source. He works across a broad range of clients rather than one narrow price tier or property type.

11. Karissa White

8.7/10

$250K–$890K · 5 reviews

Karissa White has sold real estate in the Bloomington market for close to two decades, working as an associate with RE/MAX Advantage Plus. Her production is heavily concentrated in Bloomington itself, and trailing five-year transaction data shows a roughly even split between buyer- and seller-side closings. Public reviews are uniformly five stars, but the verified count is small — five on RateMyAgent — thin for a career this long.

12. Kevin Kalligher

8.7/10

$104K–$810K · 39 reviews

A high-volume Duluth-Superior agent with a near-perfect, independently verified review record and hundreds of closed sales.

13. Regan Englund

8.6/10

$300K–$900K · 56 reviews

Regan Englund founded the Regan Englund Real Estate Group, a small team working out of Keller Williams Classic Realty NW in Maple Grove. She holds Minnesota real estate license #40370982 and has been active in the market for roughly a decade. Combined Zillow and Google reviews put her near a 4.9 average across 56 ratings, and third-party agent-ranking data credits her group with about 93 closed transactions in the trailing 12 months. She covers a wide range of transaction types rather than a single niche.

14. Tyler Miller

8.6/10

$49K–$3.2M · 292 reviews

Tyler Miller is CEO and co-founder of Obvious Real Estate, an eXp Realty-affiliated team headquartered at 9100 Baltimore Street NE in Blaine. He has worked in the Twin Cities market since the mid-2000s and has co-run the team with Kaela Kullman since 2016. The team's Birdeye business profile lists 292 reviews at a 5.0 average, and its own marketing claims the top-producing team title in Blaine for five straight years. Buyers and sellers should ask upfront which team member will actually handle their file rather than assume it will be Miller personally.

15. Skip Halverson

8.6/10

$150K–$700K · 7 reviews

A 23-year, Hall-of-Fame RE/MAX producer with a perfect (if thin) review record, built around first-time buyers, lake/recreational property, and round-the-clock availability.

16. Sonja Zoet

8.5/10

$160K–$620K

Sonja Zoet has worked the Mankato-area market since 2013, a hometown return after starting her license in Florida and South Carolina. She spent seven years at True Real Estate, Mankato's largest local brokerage by sales volume, before moving her license to Real Broker, LLC in late 2024 while continuing to run her own team, The Zoet Group. Every review platform checked shows a perfect star rating, though aggregator sites disagree sharply on the exact review count, so no single figure here is treated as authoritative.

17. Nikki Ritter

8.5/10

$300K–$900K · 43 reviews

Nikki Ritter is a RE/MAX Advantage Plus associate working out of the brokerage's Eagan office, with nine years in the business. RealTrends Verified 2025 data ranks her first by sales volume among agents primarily working Eagan, on 45 closed sides worth about $24.7 million. Her review record is real but thin on the platforms most buyers check first, concentrated instead on Experience.com. She works both sides of the transaction rather than specializing in one price tier or property type.

18. Aaron Jones

8.5/10

$133K–$620K · 67 reviews

A 20-year Rochester veteran who works solo across the full price spectrum, backed by a clean five-star review record.

19. Matt Wieber

8.5/10

$150K+

A top-1% Central Minnesota producer who left the corporate-brokerage track to build his own shop, working everything from starter homes to seven-figure listings.

20. Jessica Tietema

8.5/10

$69K–$390K · 18 reviews

A consistently 5-star-rated RE/MAX agent who has guided a steady stream of Mankato-area first-time buyers and sellers over 8 years, with zero negative reviews on record.

21. Becca Brinkman

8.5/10

$225K–$918K · 11 reviews

A Northfield native with two decades of local closings and a clean 5.0-star record, best suited to buyers and sellers who want an agent who already knows the block.

22. Clark Diel

8.5/10

$118K–$650K

A 24-year Mankato veteran with 157 closed sales in the last five years and a specialty list built for harder deals such as foreclosures, short sales, and investment property, not just straightforward retail sales.

23. Beth Reilly

8.4/10

$225K–$2.1M

A hyper-local West Bloomington specialist who, with husband-and-wife partner Dan Burling, has built a 13-year practice concentrated almost entirely in one submarket.

24. Dan Schneider

8.4/10

$200K–$1.2M

A Dale/Grand-neighborhood local whose design-and-staging partnership with his husband is a genuine, uncommon differentiator.

25. Brian Wagner

8.3/10

$180K–$650K

Brian Wagner is a Coldwell Banker Realty agent working out of the Crocus Hill office on Grand Avenue, licensed in Minnesota since 2007 after an earlier career in higher education administration. His stated practice centers on Saint Paul's Macalester-Groveland, Summit Hill, and Crocus Hill neighborhoods, with first-time buyers and foreclosure transactions named as specialties. No aggregated review count or sales-volume figure is publicly posted for him, so his standing rests more on neighborhood ties than on documented numbers.

26. Tom Clusiau

8.3/10

$150K–$450K · 58 reviews

A solo Fargo-based RE/MAX Realtor with genuinely verifiable review proof and an explicitly stated Moorhead service radius.

27. Bob Reidell

8.3/10

$150K–$900K

A 46-year Twin Cities veteran whose Grand Avenue team runs almost entirely on repeat clients and referrals.

28. David Chase

8.3/10

$184K–$1.4M

A two-decade Twin Cities Realtor and Bloomington broker-owner who has lived in the area since 1982, running his own small independent brokerage rather than a large franchise team.

29. Chris Mosier

8.2/10

$250K–$800K

Chris Mosier has sold real estate in the Lakeville-anchored south metro since 2009, with more than 700 homes closed across Lakeville, Apple Valley, Farmington, Prior Lake and Burnsville. He works as a bilingual (English/Spanish) generalist rather than a niche specialist, covering first-time buyers, move-up sales, new construction and investment property. He recently moved to the newly independent Pemberton Real Estate after several years affiliated with eXp Realty, and no verifiable aggregate review count turned up to back the scattered positive testimonials on his own site and Yelp.

30. Steven Milkovich

8.2/10

$55K–$1.1M · 112 reviews

A NW-metro team lead with nearly a decade of top-5% production, explicitly built around trade-up buyers, first-timers, and luxury clients across Plymouth and its neighboring suburbs.

31. Heidi Swanson

8.2/10

$172K–$913K

A boutique Grand Avenue agent whose Old Home Certification is a genuine edge for Saint Paul's historic housing stock.

32. Katie Fears

8.1/10

$180K–$1.2M · 6 reviews

Katie Fears is an active Edina Realty agent in Eden Prairie (part of the Leicht Fears Group) with a fast-growing practice — 61 homes sold and 21 in the last year, at a perfect 5.0 across her reviews. She's a strong, responsive choice for mid-market buyers and sellers across Eden Prairie and the west metro, from first purchases up to about $1.2M.

33. Alex Murray

8.1/10

$197K–$785K

A Blaine-office Edina Realty agent with a genuinely local track record — roughly a quarter of recent sales land inside Blaine itself, not just the wider metro.

34. Chad Piepho

8.0/10

$200K–$1.5M · 6 reviews

Chad Piepho has worked in Minnesota real estate since 2003 and has been based in the Brainerd Lakes area since 2008, now serving as broker/owner of Counselor Realty's Brainerd office. His public review footprint is thin for that tenure — six ratings on one aggregator site, all five stars — so there is limited independent volume to judge consistency against. His stated coverage is concentrated on specific lake chains (Gull Lake, Whitefish Chain) and nearby towns rather than the broader Brainerd market as a whole.

35. Gary Metchnek

8.0/10

$100K–$860K · 87 reviews

A steady, full-service Edina Realty solo agent with a perfect 5-star record and verified buyer-side experience in Plymouth.

36. Nate Thompson

7.9/10

$250K–$650K · 5 reviews

Nate Thompson is a long-tenured Edina Realty agent in Eden Prairie — licensed since 1993 — who focuses on first-time buyers and relocation across the southwest metro. He's the patient, experienced choice for a first purchase or a move into Chanhassen, Chaska or Eden Prairie, with three decades of local experience behind a modest, steady practice.

37. Chad Anderson

7.9/10

$200K–$1.6M

A Bloomington-headquartered brokerage co-founder whose interest in real estate started young at his grandfather's rental properties, and who now runs his own small local firm.

38. Dawn Wieland

7.9/10

$250K–$600K

A first-time-buyer-friendly Edina Realty agent out of the Eagan office, praised repeatedly for patience and responsiveness in competitive-market purchases.

39. Corey Johnson

7.9/10

$62K–$860K

A relationship-first Connect Real Estate Group agent with an active, roughly 90-sale track record and consistent praise for patient, step-by-step guidance with first-time buyers and investment purchases.

40. Shannon Barnum

7.9/10

$150K+ · 11 reviews

Broker/owner of an independent, fee-transparent Moorhead-area brokerage with two decades in the local market, working as a two-person team.

41. Eda Rivers

7.8/10

$60K–$1.6M

Eda Rivers is an individual Realtor with Compass Minnesota, based out of the brokerage's office in Edina. Zillow attributes roughly 70 career sales to her, about 14 in the past year, across a price range from around $60,000 to $1.6 million and an average near $409,000. Client accounts on Zillow and her brokerage bio consistently describe her as responsive and patient, particularly with first-time buyers. She works as a solo agent rather than leading a team, so the person a client hires is the person handling the transaction.

42. Jonathan Brenny

7.8/10

$200K–$700K

A relocation-focused Edina Realty agent embedded in one of Maple Grove's longest-running, highest-volume local teams — strong institutional backing, thinner individual public track record.

43. Karen Anderson

7.5/10

$150K–$500K

A Moorhead-based RE/MAX agent early in her career whose 2025 production already ranks among the city's busiest, though her track record is still short.